BS Detector: Is Jose Mourinho really about to get fired?

Hope you enjoyed the -40 degree temperatures and constant darkness, because if you're asking that then it's probable you've just returned from five months in Antarctica. Chelsea have had a terrible season so far, winning just three out of their ten matches in the league. Most unbelievably, they have lost twice at home - and to Crystal Palace and Southampton, of all clubs.

Indeed they are. It was Palace's first win at Stamford Bridge since 1982 - and back then, both teams were in the second tier.

Why, just this morning Ben Lyttleton argued (and pretty convincingly) on this website that the Blues are substantially worse than they were this time eight years ago, when Mourinho was fired before.

Yep. That's why we've had these sorts of headlines:

On top of that, there has been public speculation from all sorts of places. A Monaco director called Alessandro Proto even confirmed that the Ligue 1 side had phoned Mourinho after Saturday's match to see if they might hire him. "It's at a very early stage," said Proto, "but we're very confident."

No. Not quite.

Back in 2007, there was a slightly different feel about Chelsea, and about Mourinho. It felt (rightly or wrongly) as if it was clear he had done as much as he could for the Blues, who had finished runners-up in the league the previous year. There was also a feeling that they would never claim the Champions League title that they wanted unless they took a slightly different tack.

Hold your horses, we're not finished yet. The relationship between Mourinho and Roman Abramovich had been terrible at the time as well. As the BBC reported at the time: "Mourinho has been at loggerheads with the Russian since their disagreement over the lack of funds to sign players during last January's transfer window. Mourinho's reluctance to play Ukraine international Andriy Shevchenko, brought in by Abramovich at a cost of £31m, and the Russian billionaire's desire to bring in [Avram] Grant [as director of football] from Portsmouth to work with the misfiring striker only served to heighten the tension... Mourinho is understood to have simmered ever since."

Indeed not. Mourinho has had his own way - to an almost absurd degree, some would say, given his treatment of the likes of Juan Mata and Kevin De Bruyne. And while last time round Mourinho left "by mutual consent", that would very much not be the case this time.

Definitely not. Last time he could point to the decisions made by the club and say that any shortcomings weren't his fault. This time he would have to walk out under a cloud of failure.

No, but nobody would say losing a title to that Barcelona side was exactly a disaster, and the strength of Chelsea's desire to re-hire him made it all seem quite gentlemanly. And it would also be hugely expensive to axe him.

It'll be something like that, but that's just the start. As Dan Levene wrote on Monday, "a new manager would have his own views, and replacing the whole team again would cost huge amounts of money" - we're talking hundreds of millions on top of hundreds of millions already invested in the team that cantered to the title just a few months ago. Considering that Roman Abramovich already faces a £500 million bill for the new Stamford Bridge, he can't just press the button on a whim as he might once have done.

Almost certainly - and remember, that statement came just a few weeks ago. Since then, actually, Chelsea have a win in the league, and ground out a draw in Kiev - so while the performance against West Ham at the weekend was terrible, there are signs of life. And more than that: Mourinho hasn't stopped being a good manager, and he doesn't suddenly have a squad full of no-hopers. Both players and manager will be given every chance to turn things around. And that means thing will have to get an awful lot worse before he gets the chop.

Sure, Chelsea haven't been very good. But even Roman Abramovich isn't rich enough to write off a third of a billion pounds - i.e. £30m on severance, £20m on getting a new guy and £250m-plus in new players - sacking a manager who won the league in May.